The 10 Most Endearingly Ridiculous Hair Metal Bands Ever

The 10 Most Endearingly Ridiculous Hair Metal Bands Ever

In among the slew of albums out this week, we were rather surprised to see one bearing the name LA Guns. We’ll be honest and admit that we assumed these Los Angeles hair metal stalwarts had broken up years ago, but no, they’re still going strong (although they appear to have splintered into two parallel versions of themselves, a long and complicated story that’s related at Wikipedia for anyone interested). Anyway, for all that mid-’80s LA metal was undeniably awful and silly, there was something rather endearing about its sheer, unabashed absurdity — as Flavorwire hero Nicky Wire once said, “You should never be afraid to look like a fool.” As such, we’ve always had a rather guilty soft spot for some of these bands, and thus we’ve collated a list of 10 gloriously absurd acts from the genre’s heyday. (And trust us, this is one feature you have to read until the end. Not that you wouldn’t anyway. But still. Really.)

Warrant

Yes, “Cherry Pie” was ludicrously overplayed and, y’know, ludicrous in general. But there was something kinda likeable about Warrant — they didn’t appear to take themselves overly seriously (we still giggle about the bit in the “Cherry Pie” video where the father walks in), and we were genuinely sad to hear of the death of singer Jani Lane last year, apparently from alcohol poisoning.